I love fall. It’s always been my favorite season. I really love it. I swear, I do. If it sounds like I’m getting a bit defensive here, it’s because, to be honest, recently I haven’t really ACTED like I loved fall. I’ve been, well, a pretty flaky lover of autumn.

My last real fall was 2012 — a full year and a half ago. I was in Vermont and it was perfect. Hot cider, crisp breezes, pumpkin carving, brewery tours, apple orchards, canoeing, goose-down vests and of course, the colors. Winter in Vermont may be an exercise is sadism, but fall is pretty damn nice.

In 2013, I spent autumn in Monterey, California. Monterey does many things well (whales, for example) but fall is not one of them. Not that I’m REALLY complaining about 70 degree days in December, except well, fine, maybe I am.

Despite all my jet-setting and summer-chasing, until last week I hadn’t really internalized the fact that fall could take place outside of September, October and November. The only fall I’ve spent in the southern hemisphere was in Cordoba, Argentina, where hot, dry summer directly becomes cold, wet winter. I’m totally down with sun-bathing in January…but changing leaves and pumpkin lattes in April? Puhhhlease.

Luckily this is Chile and there are no pumpkin lattes to be found, so I didn’t have to suffer that particular existential crisis. Fall, however, is still here. In April. And it turns out I like it just as much as I do in October.

And fall in the Andes? It’s nothing short of extraordinary.

You might be hard pressed to find a hipster in a goose-down vest sipping apple cider while lounging in an adirondak chair, but you will see beautiful reds and oranges offset by black volcanic soil and soaring snow-capped peaks. Top that, Vermont, I dare you.

Photo Cred: Sean Leader

And if you’re hankering for that perfect fall afternoon snack and the lack of maple-cheddar-apple paninis is getting you down, there is always kuchen, southern Chile’s iconic local desert, inexplicably named after the German word for cake despite bearing more similarity to pie. Oh and wine. Good ol’ five dollar bottle of Chilean wine will have you feeling the autumn spirit in no time.

I purchased this particular kuchen, of the three-berry variety, out of the back of a random woman’s station wagon. She had about twelve pies lined up in the trunk, all set up like she was running a proper bakery. She then gave me her phone number so I could call her for empanadas or lasagne whenever I wanted. Brilliant.

(And I’m going to take a minor detour here and address my birth country personally: Dear USA, you do many things right but all this lawsuit, sue-happy nonsense has left your citizens sorely deprived of road-side pie. Please change. Love, Syd.)

And yes, as beautiful as my first “real” fall in the southern hemisphere was, I couldn’t quite wrap my head around this fall in April thing — it just didn’t feel right. Instead of satisfying my fall-craving, it has me yearning for October in Vermont.

Have you ever spent your favorite season on the other side of the world? Share your thoughts below!